


The Attended Tree

by neverminetohold



Category: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Fandom, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, First Meeting, Gen, Homophobia, Language, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-14 00:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4542873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverminetohold/pseuds/neverminetohold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Geralt had thought he'd seen it all, especially in war-torn Velen. He should have known better. As ever, the chasm between humans and monsters gapes wide...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Attended Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heeroluva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeroluva/gifts).



It had rained for days on end.  
  
The road had turned to squelching mud that the feeble sun had not yet managed to dry. Wisps of fog hung over Velen's landscape, the sky gray despite the hour. Due to the war, many villages had been abandoned or ravaged by raiding parties, leaving behind fallow fields and charred ruins. - And corpses, rotting amongst burned orchards or swinging on ropes as a warning, battered by the wind, a noose tight around their discolored necks. A feast for wild dogs, crows, and necrophages of all kind.  
  
The breeze carried the putrid stench of decomposing bodies, a haze of faeces, rotten eggs and cabbage, all underlined by a musty, almost flowery scent. What spelled despair and death for the peasants meant work for a witcher, and a lot of it at that.  
  
Chewing on the last piece of his dried meat, Geralt prodded Roach gently with his heels to keep the distracted mare moving. Oats crunched between her teeth, muzzle buried deep in the feeding bag secured around her neck.  
  
The first sign of potential trouble to catch his eye were the birds, circling overhead, dark spots that dove down with piercing cries, to settle beyond the next hill. The second was the dull copper smell of blood soaked into sheepskin.  
  
"Come on, Roach," Geralt said, "let's see what we've got."  
  
xxx  
  
Geralt listened for a moment, then slid out of the saddle, allowing Roach to roam freely. There was nothing to hear but the protest of startled crows carried towards the distant mountain range and water, dripping on the ground from the tips of leaves.  
  
The man had been a merchant. He wore a torn jacket and nothing else, lying face down in a puddle. Some of it was clotted blood, the rest his own piss and vomit. Defensive wounds; cause of death: a cracked skull. The birds had pecked out his eyeballs, while necrophages and wolves had just started in on his soft underbelly, pulling out ropes of darkened, swelling guts.  
  
Whatever his simple cart had carried, it was gone along with his coin and clothes, as was the horse. The tracks led off the road and into the forest. The wheels churning up the mud in drying clumps, its bulk had cut a swath of destruction through the undergrowth.  
  
"Mhm," Geralt hummed. He crouched down beside the corpse, eyes narrowed in thought. "Everything says bandits, one more group of deserters. Except these wounds..."  
  
Roach snorted, came closer in reaction to his tone of voice. She bent her long neck to gnaw on the hood of his woolen cloak. He pushed her back with a low whistle that told the mare to keep away, and stood to follow the trail.  
  
xxx  
  
Something was off about that forest. It lay in the air, a watchful presence that send a shiver down his spine and made the small hairs on the back of his neck rise.  
  
Geralt would have suspected a leshen, and an ancient one at that, except there were no totems he could find, and it took his medallion a long time to react. When it did, it didn't vibrate so much as heat up, by less than five degrees. A place of power then, only it wasn't.  
  
Curiosity was paid for more often in blood and spitted curses than hard coin or words of gratitude, but Geralt couldn't deny that it was what kept him walking.  
  
He had lost the cart's track some time ago, when it veered off sharply into the swamps. There, the never ending rain of the last three days had washed all signs of its passing through clean away. Even a witcher's senses had their limit.  
  
The sky had cleared, showing blue between quickly scudding clouds, and allowing dappled sunlight to reach the soft ground that was covered in grass and moss. More flowers and herbs in all colors than Geralt knew how to name grew on the glade he had reached after twenty minutes march, though he recognized those he used as ingredients for his potions: arenaria, blowbill, celandine, and moleyarrow.  
  
At first glance all seemed normal, if unusually peaceful. Except it was not yet the time of year for heather to bloom in shades of lilac, nor for trees to have boughs that hung low with the weight of red apples and peaches.  
  
Nothing moved or was to be heard, only tumbling butterflies and humming bees, yet Geralt felt eyes on him. He left, carefully retracing his steps to avoid any more damage to the vegetation.  
  
xxx  
  
There were few places left in the Northern Kingdoms that would welcome a witcher with open arms, even those that carried the parchment of a contract they had found at the nearest crossroad. - Still, the hostility, fear and suspicion his arrival was greeted with in the tiny hamlet took Geralt by surprise.  
  
The few mud-spattered children that had played in the meadows were herded inside by their pale and harrowed looking mothers, doors were latched and window shutters closed. Ten homes with their thatched roofs and vegetable gardens fell silent, until only the alderman remained beside the well. - And those that breathed harshly, out of sight, standing hidden behind corners. Their hearts were beating fast, bones grinding where their knuckles turned white, fingers curled around what weapons poor peasants had at hand.  
  
Geralt pulled on Roach's reins, slowing the mare to a halt, not too keen on being impaled by a pitchfork - once of that had been enough. If these villagers had killed that merchant to scrape by on his goods as he suspected, then the damage was already done. It was none of his business.  
  
"Greetings."  
  
"Master witcher." The alderman, stooped with age and bald, inclined his head. "What brings you here?"  
  
"Saw your contract about villagers gone missing. Looking for work," Geralt answered, then shrugged. "Passing through if there is none."  
  
Sweat ran down the alderman's temple despite the cool breeze, and he could not quite bring himself to meet Geralt's slitted eyes. That wasn't unusual. The deep scratch at the nape of his wrinkled neck, inflamed, no week old, and too blunt and round-shaped for any claw, except the fingernail of a grown man or woman, was.  
  
Geralt shifted in the saddle, subtly lowering his shoulder to reach his steel sword more easily, should the need arise, while Roach reacted to the tension, dancing on the spot with a soft neigh.  
  
The alderman raised his hand. "All is well. Come on out."  
  
Grass and leaves rustled as the men that had hidden stepped out of the shadows and forward, their axes, butcher knives, and scythes pointing to the ground. Most of them went straight inside to join their families, giving horse and rider a wide berth. Only two returned to their task of repairing the fence of a pigsty.  
  
Geralt noted their burst knuckles as he dismounted, leading Roach by the bridle. "Seems you're expecting trouble."  
  
"Yes, well... My apologies for the precaution, master witcher," the alderman said. "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Joren."  
  
"Geralt of Rivia," Geralt answered, filling the expectant pause.  
  
"You see, it is not only a monster that plagues us by leading our loved ones astray to never return, but also bandits. They hide in the ruins of the old fortress up north, and I fear our peaceful little hamlet will be the next they'll set their sight upon."  
  
"I take it you wrote up that contract yourself?"  
  
Joren blinked his watery eyes owlishly, then chuckled, realizing his refined speech had given him away as one who had spent a long time living in a city. "I was a scribe in Novigrad for twenty years until I decided to return home."  
  
"Mhm. Those disappearances. What can you tell me about them?"  
  
Joren sighed. "Not much I'm afraid. Bran's daughter said she'd seen a pale man in the forest who had beckoned her to follow while she picked flowers. She rushed back screaming, but no one else out in the fields had seen anything, and thus we did not believe her, the girl being only six summer's old. She was put to bed that evening and gone the next morning."  
  
Geralt nodded, but he could hear Joren's heartbeat. He could have been wrong about the reason for the tense line of his shoulders or the sour sweat that darkened the back of the man's simple tunic, but that quick cadence meant a lie. In this particular case, taken into account what he had sensed in the forest, perhaps a half-truth.  
  
"You searched for her?"  
  
"Of course. But there was no trail to follow and the swamp..." Joren feel silent with another heavy sigh and the clicking noise of swallowing with a dry throat. "That was... ah... a month ago. After that, the sightings became more frequent."  
  
"Who else?"  
  
"Alrik. His parents died when he was thirteen, leaving him in my families' care. He was wont to wander around in the forest. Perhaps he even went in search of the monster that had taken little Sara." Joren grimaced, a minute twitch that curled his lips in tightly controlled disgust. "Always with his head in the clouds, but... ah... a good lad."  
  
"Again no body? No witnesses?"  
  
"None."  
  
Geralt nodded. "I need to question whoever last saw Alrik. And Sara's parents."  
  
Joren wrung his hands, clearly unhappy. "But of course."  
  
xxx  
  
Not half an hour later Geralt, having left Roach behind near the road to graze and rest, was on his way back to the glade.  
  
He was about to part the foliage and step into the sunlight when a feeble chirrup up ahead stopped him short. It was then that he spotted the creature, indeed in the guise of a pale young man. Except this one lacked a heartbeat and did not breathe, smelled of pollen, sap, and nectar, rather than unwashed skin.  
  
He was one head shorter than Geralt and possessed a lean, muscular build that brought either a dancer or tumbler to mind, especially since he was stark naked. His face was turned away, but no human possessed hair the color of clover. It fell in loose waves over his shoulders, all the way to the small of his back. As he crouched down, the tips of long, pointed ears, not unlike those of elves, became visible.  
  
Geralt watched as the creature scooped up a hatchling that had fallen out of its nest with tender care. It rested on its palm, a ball of blood-stained feathers, that listed weakly to the side.  
  
"You can come out," the creature said, and snapped the sparrow's neck. Tossed aside, the tiny corpse vanished between the flowers. "Witcher."  
  
Keeping a carefully calculated distance between them, Geralt mildly asked, "What gave me away?"  
  
The creature met his gaze. Its eyes were the color of burnished gold, set in a finely chiseled and ageless face with high cheekbones. "All that you touched on your way here."  
  
"Is this your doing?"  
  
Geralt's gesture encompassed the whole clearing, the exotic and rare flowers that grew with no regard for the season or weather. The ripe fruits, the rich scent of honey, and the subtle movements of vines and leaves, despite the lack of wind.  
  
The creature raised a delicate eyebrow, hand caressing the rough bark of an alder tree. Ants and beetles poured out of a deep crack, wandered in-between its splayed fingers. "You disapprove?"  
  
"No." Geralt shook his head. Keenly aware that he was at a disadvantage, here, in the heart of a creature's realm that was unknown to him, and also unwilling to harm a sentient monster without cause, he stuck with the truth. "I'm impressed."  
  
"Are you now?"  
  
"Mhm. Was pretty sure I'd seen it all." Geralt noted the barest hint of a bitter smile. "I am Geralt of Rivia."  
  
"You may call me Síth."  
  
The creature inclined its head with the aloof grace of a king, bestowing a boon on a lowly subject. His reaction was out of place, but Geralt almost smiled. Tone and gesture reminded him of Yen, her more haughty moods, that often ended with a portal, dumping him into the nearest lake.  
  
"Did they send you here because of what happened to Alrik?"  
  
"I'm here because I grow tired of their lies."  
  
"Then why not leave?"  
  
"Hunting monsters that threaten humans is my job," Geralt explained, holding himself perfectly still as Síth moved closer. "They fear you enough to risk exposing their own crimes."  
  
"I do no more than stare at them from afar." Síth sneered in a way that twisted his face into a cruel and cold mask. "It is their guilty conscience that plagues them, despite their belief that their gods would praise them for a deed well done."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"He came to me, hoping that I would kill him." Síth settled on the ground. His legs vanished, as if his pale skin became one with the soil and blades of grass. In the blink of an eye, butterflies had gathered around him, clung to his hair with their spindly legs, like a crown of living jewels. He seemed utterly unconcerned to have an armed witcher loom over him. "Taking ones own life is not easily done, as Alrik had discovered, but he could bear the abuse no longer."  
  
Geralt nodded, remembering the alderman's thinly veiled disgust. "I take it he was... different?"  
  
"Different?" Síth repeated, clearly amused. "If you mean to say that he would have gladly fucked a man but could not bear the thought of lying with a woman, far less marry one and go on pretending as his kin demanded, then yes. He was."  
  
What would shock many left Geralt, himself disdained as a mutant, a 'freak of nature', unfazed. He was well aware that the Continent was ripe with discrimination and racism, fear of all that deviated from the norm. - In this particular case, the fate of Hunter Mislav came to mind.  
  
"I see."  
  
"Instead, I listened," Síth continued. "And I told him to leave. I was sure he had no future here, but hoped he would have a chance in one of the great cities. Yet it was too late. Shortly after he had left me, I heard him scream. The men of his village had gathered to kill him."  
  
The atmosphere of the glade grew tense. Smooth vines coiled and revealed their thorns. The haze of scents lost its enticing sweetness, carried now the sharp and bitter tang of toxins. Geralt did not reach for his silver sword. It wasn't hostility he felt, licking over his skin like the heat from a raging fire.  
  
"You control the forest."  
  
"I do," Síth said. "But Alrik had come to me to die, had never before tried in earnest to defend himself or attempted to flee. Bearing that in mind, I thought he would not have wanted me to slaughter his kin in an effort to save him."  
  
"Mhm." Geralt thought about the young woman he had questioned, eyes red-rimmed, unsteady on her feet from a severe lack of sleep, and yet simmering with anger. "What happened to his body?"  
  
Síth did not answer, only gestured towards the alder tree. Carefully stepping around him, Geralt went to take a closer look at it. The crack in its bark had nearly sealed itself, but the white of clean-picked bone was visible within. A few beetles and ants still scuttled over the skull, their shells gleaming with the residue of body fat and tissue.  
  
"Humans believe that they return to the earth," Síth said, his tone for the first time not cool and distant. "Do they not?"  
  
"Yes," Geralt said, "they do."  
  
xxx  
  
His final verdict was that Síth posed no threat. Thus, having not earned it, Geralt did not return for the coin that the alderman had promised him nor involved himself further by confronting the villagers with the truth.  
  
He prodded Roach with his heels so that the mare picked up her pace, following the road north.


End file.
